16 NEWS
MILDURA WEEKLY FRIDAY, JULY 3, 2015
THE Mildura Book launch of ‘Harnessing the
River Murray’ - a history of the Murray River
locks and weirs system - will be held at Mildura
and District Genealogical Society Rooms, 74
Deakin Avenue on Monday, July 6 at 2 pm. Au-
thor and historian Helen Stagg will be present,
and that evening at 8pm will be giving a talk on
the subject to the Mildura Genealogy Group’s
July meeting.
The public is invited to both events, with
free entry.
Helen is the grand-daughter of one of the
hundreds of men who worked on the mammoth
engineering scheme to control the waters of the
Murray River with a series of locks and weirs.
She says that as a child she was told stories
by her mother of her own childhood at the lock
construction sites, and Helen had it her mission
to further explore the stories of the workmen
and their families.
Over the past five years, Helen undertook ex-
tensive archival research and captured the oral
history of some of the few remaining ‘lock chil-
dren’ for her book, telling stories of the people
who built Locks one to nine between 1915 and
1935.
Helen’s book, with a foreword by Professor
Geoffrey Blainey, has 258 pages and over 150
photographs, and focuses on the first nine locks
and weirs which were built in South Australia. It
tells the story from the viewpoint of the ordinary
people, the workers and the women and children
who lived with them in the camps which popped
up along the river at each construction site.
The launch this year marks 100 years since
the Foundation Stone was laid for the first Lock
at Blanchetown in South Australia.
Information about the book can be found
on Helen’s web page http://historybyhelen.com.
au.
River Murray locks,
weirs book launch
• SET IN STONE: The commemorative plague marking the 100th anniversary of the laying of the foundation stone for Lock 1, and INSET,
attending the recent SA book launch, held at Lock One at Blanchetown, were Tony Pasin, Federal Member for Barker, SA, Member for
Chaffey Tim Whetstone, Member for Hammond Adrian Pederick, Minister for Water Ian Hunter, author Helen Stagg, Mid-Murray Mayor
Dave Burgess, Murray Darling Basin Authority chief executive Dr Rhonda Dickson, Department of Environment deputy secretary David
Parker, and MDBA chair Neil Andrew.
mildura NAIDOC committee